The Supreme Court, in a morning of triumph for simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense, struck down Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s cursory dismissal of the Ricci appeal.

The justices’ time was well-spent in deciding reasonably, but the people’s time has been thoroughly, meticulously wasted — five years of litigation, public salaries, dry cleaning fees, careers, the damned paper and power used, and the wasted daylight. And wasted not because the case could have been wisely ruled upon in lower court, but because Mayor DeStefano, Judge Arterton, Judge Sotomayor, and the four Supremes in the minority constitute far too many people in successive positions of power believing in the risen ghosts of a dead idea.

New Haven invalidated Ricci’s test results because New Haven officials trusted the validity of leftist empathy as an ideology of government. On up the line, it found favor.

And that is all we are talking about.

Ricci does not happen if too small a number of people believe in leftism — “believe” being the troubling word. Sotomayor says:

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.

I would hope, she says, because she believes in leftism. She does not say she “knows,” yet she should, as the results are in, and as the Sun does not orbit the Earth just because one would hope it so.

In 2006, Arthur C. Brooks did a tremendous job of displaying the evidence regarding the non-existence of leftist empathy, displaying in numbers what most non-leftists already knew of themselves. Brooks wrote Who Really Cares, an empirical examination of whether political identification correlates with acts of charity and volunteerism.

It does.

And it is worthwhile to note that Brooks defined himself as a liberal when he began his research and as a conservative once he had analyzed the results.

Brooks writes:

This book has shown that one of the greatest political hypocrisies of our time is the pious sloganeering about liberals in America being more compassionate than conservatives. This stereotype is false, and it is a disservice to our country.

Conservatives give more — much more — to charity, both in terms of total dollar amount and in terms of percentage of income. Conservatives also give much more of their time to volunteerism.

Independents give less and leftists give the least. This is true for both religious and non-religious causes.

But leftists believe in government redistribution as the best form of charity — that’s what leftist empathy is, correct?

Yes. But they only believe in it. Whether or not leftist, socialist-leaning laws are in place in a certain city or state, leftists still give much less. They assume that believing in government redistribution, whether or not it’s happening, is enough.

And in terms of volunteerism — say, donating blood, which even the most leftist state has never required of its citizens — leftists don’t do it. Conservatives do.

What about when leftist statutes are in effect? Like generous welfare programs? Surely that makes up for the loss in revenue to charities?

Not at all. Charities starve under leftist policy. European countries contain the least charitable citizens in the world. And the welfare recipients do worse under redistribution policies.

And it is interesting to note that a welfare recipient is tremendously less likely to give to charitable causes or to volunteer, while a working American making the exact same salary as the welfare recipient — white, black, Latina, whatever — is likely to be among the planet’s most charitable people.

If an idea, fully implemented, produces a nil change or a negative result — the precise opposite of its intended consequence — the reality of that idea as valid ideology ceases to exist. It carries on only in the hearts of those who refuse to accept the results as a valid indicator. In tennis, “wood racquets are better” simply no longer exists as a viable governing principle.

Pride and dissonance carry on with failed ideas, but results are objective, and good minds of science can testify to the validity and strength of the results, and once that happens the numbers of those who reject them will inevitably dwindle. For everyone else, the idea is dead and gone as a driver of thoughts and policy, existing only as a model of what we should not repeat in the future with our perpetually insufficient time.

So let’s not waste our courts’ minutes any more with questions of legality that should never have extended beyond the minds of the disappearing proud and dissonant.

Instead, simply remind all that leftism and leftist empathy — leftism being, quite exactly, an idea of how to create a more empathetic society — is truly dead and gone. It should only carry on as a memory of a failure.

Yet we should forever recall how it occurred, and how destructive it has been, while we encourage its remaining adherents to reject it.

The following paragraph stands as responsible for fomenting the American Revolution as anything else. Perhaps it can charge the abandonment of leftism as well:

In the following pages I offer nothing more than simple facts, plain arguments, and common sense; and have no other preliminaries to settle with the reader, than that he will divest himself of prejudice and prepossession, and suffer his reason and his feelings to determine for themselves; that he will put on, or rather that he will not put off, the true character of a man, and generously enlarge his views beyond the present day.

Paine wished to inspire revolt against greater government control — government control being exactly defined as more restrictive laws and increased taxes, as there is no other means of it. And, the far right being anarchy, increased government control defines leftist empathy and leftism itself. There can be no other definition. No policy of empathy can be enacted without more restrictive laws and increased taxes.

So what happened? We established a nation not of men, but of laws. But when the men faltered, you the leftists found fault with just laws rather than unjust men.

Jim Crow was enacted by the wretched who disavowed life and liberty — indeed, some who originally set down the words to paper held slaves themselves and broke their contract while signing it.

But you responded by losing faith in natural law rather than upholding it.

America abolished the absolute power of monarchy and succession — the arbitrary choosing of power and favor and its continuation by blood. But two centuries later, in a time of little justice, you found redemption by embracing the arbitrary bestowment of favor, and punishment, based on bloodlines.

You based your arguments on a dehumanization of the constitutionalists — you created the myth of a heartless, racialist heartland of whites. Yet you were the heartless, the arbitrary, the racialists, the believers in bloodlines before character.

And you shouldn’t be surprised — of course it is all true!

Of course you are the least generous, the angriest, the dehumanizing — you had returned towards the path of government power, and less liberty, a belief in which never happened over the course of human history without a concurrent embrace of those negative traits. You simply do not believe in less liberty, and more government confiscation of property for the “greater good,” without creating a dehumanized caricature whom, once unempowered or eradicated, all will be transcendent within your country.

You created the Christian right and the immoral wealthy, and called them stingy and uncaring, when of course you were the culprit, as always is anyone who creates a scapegoat.

Liberty will always be the correct answer — today in Tehran and forever hence. Your new creation, leftism, was a regressive notch towards man’s most horrible, fevered, utopian invention — absolute power. We outlawed your empathy for a reason — it does not and cannot exist. It’s born of dehumanization rather than heart.

The behavior you campaign for is what actually animates your political enemies, as it always is with the opponents of greater liberty.

Now, two hundred and thirty four years on, you would be wise to accept Paine’s challenge. Are you capable?

May you be able to put on, and not put off, your true character?

David Steinberg is the New York City Editor of PJ Media. Follow his tweets at @DavidSPJM.

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66 Comments, 66 Threads

Steinberg makes a good point,but one that is a little beside the point. The point is Sotamayor’s qualifications for the Supreme Court. She isn’t. She’s a racist whose judicial decisions are racists,and are derived from failed social ideals. But she is going to be confirmed and trail tainted clouds to that powerful position.

Agreed. Promote Sotomayor to a position in the Hugo Chavez cabinet, not the SCOTUS.

If only is was that simple! She would have never have been able to repeat things such as “I would hope that a wise Latina, etc…” if it was not possible to find an audience who would quietly swallow this kind of pronouncement it in the first place.

David Steinberg, Glenn Beck, Thomas Paine, and by extension all tea partiers, make yourself heard, and don’t give up the fight!

For the Left, each and every aspect of life is theoretical. They never encounter a person but only categories and symptoms. For the avant garde, the post-modernists, each and every judgement is made within the context of one among many narratives that are held to be of equal value. For all of them, life’s values are carefully wrapped and protected from experience.

Reagan put the choice between Left and Right in plain language: you can be the master of your own life or you can permit some bureaucrats to use rules of thumb in making decisions for you.

Leftist idealism is an oxymoron – it’s a paradox that can never be resolved because it’s based on the belief of the impossible.

While they purport to revile the greediness of the “wealthy,” they work to take away that which is someone else’s to redistribute it. Their minds cannot grasp that that act in itself is greediness.

While they claim to be the champions of the downtrodden and the underprivileged, they enact programs that perpetuate the poverty of the downtrodden and underprivileged. They create the class, then they keep that class under their thumb with not-so-subtle references to the victimization of the class by the “greedy wealthy” when in fact it is the left themselves who to the victimizing.

While they call themselves “liberals,” they step out in favor of greater government control with every new policy that increases the size and scope of the government. Bigger government = fewer liberties.

The list goes on and on – that the left, on the one hand believes they stand for “this,” while on the other hand they act for “that.” They don’t comprehend that legislation based on feelings rather than reason leads to flawed and ineffective programs, which ultimately lead to more programs to correct the mistakes of the previous programs. It’s a snake swallowing its own tail.

Either they are incapable of understanding cause and effect, or they simply refuse to acknowledge its existence.

“And in terms of volunteerism — say, donating blood, which even the most leftist state has never required of its citizens — leftists don’t do it. Conservatives do.”

So true. My husband has donated his blood for years [it's actually good for men to donate blood to reduce Iron over-load]. His ‘left leaning’ buddies freak out over the idea of donating bodily fluids. lol

Blarty says “So how do y’all feel about the fact that the unaccountable Supreme Court invalidated the decision of the elected city officials of New Haven? That the Court “legislated from the bench”?”

1. They overturned an unfair ruling made by the appellate court which had upheld an unfair ruling made by the city. That’s what courts are supposed to do. And they quoted law in the process, not feelings.

And that, my friends, is the leftist responce–don’t engage the argument, attack the writer.

There can be no leftist response because leftism “simply does not and cannot exist.” The subhead says so quite clearly, and it couldn’t be poor phrasing because it was written by a person who “kicks ass in print.”

Er, the Supreme Court ruled that the City of New Haven, Connecticut violated Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

That’s right. A group of unaccountable judges in black robes overturned the decision of legitimately elected public representatives. When liberal judges do that, y’all call it “judicial activism.”

Just sayin.

They didn’t create or discover any new laws — they did not, for instance, invalidate affirmative action or otherwise overturn any precedents — they simply found that Title VII had been violated.

Close. It’s true that they found that throwing out the tests violated Title VII. It’s a stretch to say that “precedent” – loosely speaking – wasn’t overturned. The Court announced that, from now on, the “strong basis in evidence” standard will be used in these cases. This is not the standard that was in use when the lower courts (including the Second Circuit) issued their rulings. Under the standard that existed until now, the failure rate of minorities on the New Haven test would have been adequate to show disparate impact.

Now, the Supreme Court has the prerogative to set new standards (or, as they say in Ricci, “clarify” the law), even when it means invalidating a decision made by elected representatives. That’s how it’s supposed to work. I just laugh at how it magically isn’t “judicial activism” when it turns out the way you want it to.

“That’s right. A group of unaccountable judges in black robes overturned the decision of legitimately elected public representatives. When liberal judges do that, y’all call it “judicial activism.””

Oh, piffle. What you understand about judicial review would fit in a thimble with space left over. Finding that a statute violates the Constitution and is thus invalid is not “judicial activism;” it is a core judicial function and has been since Marbury v. Madison.

Judicial activism, my lad, is when a judge (who *can* be conservative, as in the Slaughterhouse Cases and Lochner v. New York) pretends to find shit in the Constitution he really just made up. Rewriting the law according to personal preference, ‘legislating from the bench,’ is not a proper judicial activity.

That is not remotely the same thing as deciding, rather obviously, that racial preferences violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

#25 Blarty: “That’s right. A group of unaccountable judges in black robes overturned the decision of legitimately elected public representatives. When liberal judges do that, y’all call it “judicial activism.” ”

When have I ever called it that? Have I ever called it that? No, I never called it that.

Judicial activism is when a judge believes they are entitled to create law. That’s activism.

And yes, they did set a precedent. Let’s see if any other cities around the country are stupid enough to administer a fair test to employees, then throw the results of the test out because the outcome wasn’t what they wanted it to be. The City of Newhaven was acting on the behalf of feel-good politics and flimsy political correctness.

You talk about “new standards” – why don’t you call it what it is? “Dummying down” in order to pass a select few who had every opportunity to pass the standardized test as anyone else. This is not leveling the playing field, it’s plowing it out and creating a huge hole. Equal opportunity does not guarantee equal results.

The City of New Haven was wrong, the Second Circuit was wrong. They got called on it, fairly and legally.

25. Blarty Blarckleblart wrote:
That’s right. A group of unaccountable judges in black robes overturned the decision of legitimately elected public representatives. When liberal judges do that, y’all call it “judicial activism.”

Peter asks: What does it take to get through to this idiot that what the Supreme Court did was UPHOLD an ALREADY EXISTING LAW! A law the CITY of NEW HAVEN BROKE when they decided to throw out perfectly good test results.

What would your opinion have been, Barty, if it were 9 black firefighters who had their test results thrown out because there were no white men who passed the valid exam? Would you have been on New Haven’s side in violating the already existing Article VII then?

Hey Barty and all you other loony libs, come back to the real world, will you?

I know this is getting off topic of this thread, and I apologize, but one of the biggest things in the entire Ricci V. DeStefano case that no one seems to be pointing out is that (now-Lieutenant) Ricci has suffered from a learning disability his entire life, and spent MONTHS studying and practicing for that promotion exam in order to get the valid score he accomplished. Has anyone pointed out that if the non-caucasian firefighters had put some effort into their studying, they would likely have received the required scores for promotion as well?

In some fields of human endeavor, we allow the cream to rise to the top. The most obvious is sports, where you make the major leagues on merit, but plenty more exist : philharmonic orchestras, brain surgeons, astronaunts etc… I for one would like the leaders of my local fire department to be promoted with the same ‘ruthless’ regard to empathy.For those of you out there who think Sotomeyer was correct with her ‘empathy’ based decision against Ricci, one question. By what method should promotion to higher levels of management be made in a field that literally requires life and death decisions be made? Why isn’t giving it to those who demonstrate superior knowledge of the field the correct decision?

Finding that a statute violates the Constitution and is thus invalid is not “judicial activism”…

It’s also not what the Supreme Court did in Ricci.

That is not remotely the same thing as deciding, rather obviously, that racial preferences violate the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Which isn’t what the Court did in Ricci either.

Really, Bo – you’re not even close. What happened to Aureliano? At least he had some grasp of the relevant points.

It’s not judicial activism to uphold equal protection under the law.

Sure isn’t. It’s also not what the Court did in Ricci. The Court did not reach the constitutional issue.

Think the test is racist? Don’t give the test then, but you can’t give it and then cancel the scores after the fact.

A mind-bogglingly poor recitation of the facts. Not even close enough to count in hand grenades.

Judicial activism is when a judge believes they are entitled to create law.

Every time an appeals court renders a decision it makes law. Case law.

You talk about “new standards” – why don’t you call it what it is? “Dummying down” in order to pass a select few who had every opportunity to pass the standardized test as anyone else.

Wow. You don’t even understand what “the Court announced a new standard” means. You’re not even in the ballpark of understanding. Unbelievable.

What does it take to get through to this idiot that what the Supreme Court did was UPHOLD an ALREADY EXISTING LAW!

Every time an appeals court rules (and SCOTUS is an appeals court, people), it upholds an already existing law.

For those of you out there who think Sotomeyer was correct with her ‘empathy’ based decision against Ricci, one question.

Her (and the other two judges on the Second Circuit who ruled with her) didn’t rule based on empathy. They ruled based on the law as it existed when they made their ruling. That’s why it was unanimous. The Supreme Court changed course and announced a new standard in its decision.

It’s funny how little any of you understand what you’re talking about.

Hey Barty and all you other loony libs, come back to the real world, will you?

Barty and his kind are the products of a civilization that is going away as the world “deleverages” from the credit bubble of the post-WWII era. People are clearly useless and disconnected from reality as Barty will not exist in the future, when money is tighter and one actually has to add value to get one’s daily bread. Thatcher used to say “the facts of life are conservative” and those facts are about to land on this country like a ton of bricks.

When the money’s flowing and times are good, Barty is tolerable. When the chips are down and times are tough, his type’s completely expendable.

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act has been around, as the name implies, since 1964.

The Supreme Court determined that the city of New Haven BROKE THE LAW, specifically Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, by denying the promotions to the firefighters who legally passed the city exam by throwing out those results based ENTIRELY ON THE COLOR OF THEIR SKIN.

Read that again… The CITY of NEW HAVEN BROKE A LAW ON THE BOOKS SINCE 1964.

Now tell us again how ruling in favor of firefighters under the protection of a law that has been ON THE BOOKS for 45 YEARS is judicial activism.

Oh, yeah, I fogot, in the fantasy world of you loony libs, whites can’t be discriminated against.

I notice you never answered my previous question; Would you still be (wrongly) calling it judicial activism if it were BLACK firefighters who had their promotions tossed because no white firefighters passed the exam?

And do you not agree that perhaps this whole sorry, money-wasting, time-wasting affair could have been avoided if the black firefighters had simply STUDIED, like (now-Lieutenant) Ricci spent months doing?

Answer the questions, but keep your answers limited to the REAL WORLD that the majority of us live in.

Leftism isn’t about caring for other people. It is about getting the government to take care of other people so that you don’t have to care about them.

I think it’s about lazy white people stealing money and/or opportunities from hard-working white people to give the money/opportunity to non-white people to assuage the lazy white people’s white guilt.

Like I said, when the money is flowing and opportunities abound, it’s stupid, but tolerable. Now that the world is embarking on a global game of “musical chairs”, where if you don’t grab your chair, you get nothing, it’s intolerable.

Peter the Bubblehead: I have been wondering about the same thing. Do race rights trump disability rights? Shouldn’t Ricci have been protected under the ADA??

From the ADA website: Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 prohibits private employers, state and local governments, employment agencies and labor unions from discriminating against qualified individuals with disabilities in job application procedures, hiring, firing, advancement, compensation, job training, and other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment. The ADA covers employers with 15 or more employees, including state and local governments. It also applies to employment agencies and to labor organizations. The ADA’s nondiscrimination standards also apply to federal sector employees under section 501 of the Rehabilitation Act, as amended, and its implementing rules. (emphasis mine)

Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act has been around, as the name implies, since 1964.

Excellent, Peter. Well done. The 1964 Civil Rights Act has indeed been around since 1964. It’s always good to agree on the facts.

However, the use of the “strong basis in evidence” standard has only been around since Monday. It is new law. Here’s the money quote, from the syllabus to Ricci:

“Thus, the Court adopts the strong-basis-in-evidence standard as a matter of statutory construction in order to resolve any conflict between Title VII’s disparate-treatment and disparate-impact provisions.”

Like I said, it’s the Court’s prerogative to announce a new standard. I wouldn’t call that judicial activism. “Judicial activism” is meaningless. It’s a scare-word the right cooked up to describe outcomes they don’t like.

I always liked the P.J. O’Rourke line that went something like this: “People complain about Social Security until they ponder having to have their parents move in with them”.

It’s funny when he says it, but the problem is that behind the joke is a painful truth. A whole lot of “liberalism” is in reality people trying to offload familial and community obligations onto the taxpayer. That is why I like Brooks’ work so much, because he quantifies the charity of conservatives.

Like I said, too many liberals wish to get the state to care for others so that they can go back to being hipster narcissists.

I notice you never answered my previous question; Would you still be (wrongly) calling it judicial activism if it were BLACK firefighters who had their promotions tossed because no white firefighters passed the exam?

And do you not agree that perhaps this whole sorry, money-wasting, time-wasting affair could have been avoided if the black firefighters had simply STUDIED, like (now-Lieutenant) Ricci spent months doing?

I suggest you read the recitations of the facts in the majority and dissenting opinions (they are several pages apiece). You seem not to have the necessary context. Here’s a link to the opinion:

18. Blarty Blarckleblart wrote: (and I am quoting here):
So how do y’all feel about the fact that the unaccountable Supreme Court invalidated the decision of the elected city officials of New Haven? That the Court “legislated from the bench”?

Peter writes: Thus, YOU were the first to bring up so-called ‘Judicial Activism.’

You repeated it in 25. Blarty Blarckleblart: when you stated:
That’s right. A group of unaccountable judges in black robes overturned the decision of legitimately elected public representatives. When liberal judges do that, y’all call it “judicial activism.”

I point out again, the judges did NOT oiverturn the decision of legitimately elected public representatives. They simply cancelled out, in rule of law, that wrong decision when those so-called legitimately elected reps BROKE AN EXISTING LAW (which even YOU admit has been LAW for 45 years) and which the Appeals Court ILLEGALLY chose to ignore, leaving the litigants with no other course of action then to take their complaint up to the next higher level of court, which is HOW OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT HAS WORKED for 200+ years.

If the Supreme Court had said “We feel sympaathy for these plaintiffs and believe in our hearts that they were wronged, so we feel we must creat a new law that will allow these poor, (insert skin color here) people to be promoted for no good reason” THAT would be judicial activism. Creating a law where none exists.

No, the Supreme Court upheld a law ON THE BOOKS for 45 years which states a person cannot be discrimininated against and denied a promotion BASED ONLY ON THE COLOR OF HIS SKIN, which is what New Haven tried to do to Lieutenant Ricci and several other firefighters. That is what the Supremem Court does and is for. However, what YOU are aguing is exactly what the new nominee has been esposing. Written laws be damned, I’m going to rule for the person I feel has ‘suffered’ more in my own opinion based entirely on his skin color and heritage.

How can you POSSIBLY try and defend that?

How happy would YOU be if a promotion you deserved and worked long and hard for (assuming you even work. You are a loony lib after all, and are probably on the public dole) was given to someone less deserving only because their skin color was darker than yours? Please, tell me how you would feel. I, and I’m sure many of the readers on this thread, would like to know your truthful feelings if this were to happen to you. Tell us.

Would YOU still say the City and Appeals court were right for throwing out the exam results if EVERY OTHER FACT was the same EXCEPT that the firefighters were BLACK?

Yes. The failure rate indicated there was racial bias in the testing process, even if it was unintentional. I wouldn’t favor bias against any racial group.

Do YOU agree that if the black firefighters had simply STUDIED like Lieutenant Ricci they would have passed and been promoted too?

You don’t know that they didn’t, or that they didn’t try. From Ginsburg’s dissent, which I suspect you haven’t read, and will never read:

“Other firefighters had a different view. A number of the
exam questions, they pointed out, were not germane to
New Haven’s practices and procedures. See, e.g., id., at
A774–A784. At least two candidates opposed to certifica-
tion noted unequal access to study materials. Some indi-
viduals, they asserted, had the necessary books even
before the syllabus was issued. Others had to invest
substantial sums to purchase the materials and “wait a
month and a half for some of the books because they were
on back-order.” Id., at A858. These disparities, it was
suggested, fell at least in part along racial lines. While
many Caucasian applicants could obtain materials and
assistance from relatives in the fire service, the over-
whelming majority of minority applicants were “first-
generation firefighters” without such support networks.”

However, what YOU are aguing is exactly what the new nominee has been esposing. Written laws be damned, I’m going to rule for the person I feel has ’suffered’ more in my own opinion based entirely on his skin color and heritage.

I point out again, the judges did NOT oiverturn the decision of legitimately elected public representatives.

Yes, they did. The legitimately elected public representatives of the City of New Haven chose to throw out the test results. The Supreme Court overturned that decision.

They simply cancelled out, in rule of law, that wrong decision when those so-called legitimately elected reps BROKE AN EXISTING LAW (which even YOU admit has been LAW for 45 years) and which the Appeals Court ILLEGALLY chose to ignore, leaving the litigants with no other course of action then to take their complaint up to the next higher level of court, which is HOW OUR SYSTEM OF GOVERNMENT HAS WORKED for 200+ years.

The lower courts did not act illegally. The City did not act illegally. The City threw out the test because they believed they would be liable in a Title VII lawsuit by the minority firefighters. Which they would have been, under the standard that prevailed before Monday, when the Supreme Court announced a new standard.

I hope you get it this time. I literally cannot dumb it down any more than that.

51. Blarty Blarckleblart wrote:
However, what YOU are aguing is exactly what the new nominee has been esposing. Written laws be damned, I’m going to rule for the person I feel has ’suffered’ more in my own opinion based entirely on his skin color and heritage.

Really? Can you point out where I argued that?

Peter writes: Yes, I can. Right here.
18. Blarty Blarckleblart:
So how do y’all feel about the fact that the unaccountable Supreme Court invalidated the decision of the elected city officials of New Haven? That the Court “legislated from the bench”?

As I have pointed out, ad nausium now, the Supreme Court ruled the way it did because both the city of New Haven and the Appeals Court took it upon themselves to decide one color skin was more important than another and BREAK THE EXISTING LAW, and YOU are saying they were right in doing so, therefore you are admitting a person’s skin color or heritage should have more bearing on a legal case than ACTUAL LAW.

I will now be ignoring any further posts you enter on this thread, because I am growing tired of your lunacy and doublespeak and you are not contributing anything of value to this discussion.

49. Blarty Blarckleblart wrote:
Would YOU still say the City and Appeals court were right for throwing out the exam results if EVERY OTHER FACT was the same EXCEPT that the firefighters were BLACK?

Yes. The failure rate indicated there was racial bias in the testing process, even if it was unintentional.

Peter writes: My last remark to you. The city obviously didn’t think there was any kind of racial bias in the test BEFORE they gave it. In order for your argument to be legal, which is what the Supreme Court pointed out, the exam should have been rescinded BEFORE it was taken if the city determined there was some sort of anti-minority bias in it, NOT after it was taken, scored, and the scores published.

To do so afterward, as the Supreme Court poutned out, was discrimiatory against those who STUDIED HARD and passed the exam. To argue otherwise is stupid, which you are trying to do.

Peter writes: Yes, I can. Right here.
18. Blarty Blarckleblart:
So how do y’all feel about the fact that the unaccountable Supreme Court invalidated the decision of the elected city officials of New Haven? That the Court “legislated from the bench”?

Except I don’t argue for the things you said I argued for in the quote you cite. I was characterizing the decision using the terminology of the right.

It was sarcasm. A lampoon if you will. Exposing your hypocrisy, to use the trite phrase.

As I have pointed out, ad nausium now, the Supreme Court ruled the way it did because both the city of New Haven and the Appeals Court took it upon themselves to decide one color skin was more important than another and BREAK THE EXISTING LAW…

Wrong, except for the ad nauseum part.

…and YOU are saying they were right in doing so…

From a legal standpoint, yes. They were acting in accordance with the law as it existed before Monday.

…therefore you are admitting a person’s skin color or heritage should have more bearing on a legal case than ACTUAL LAW.

I don’t profess to have the intricate knowledge that Blarty and Peter have about court precedents and readings of law, but this is a great window into the shennanigans perpetuated by leftist thought resulting in public policy highjacking.

My two cents on Alito’s text : notice how New haven gave the position of Chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners , not someone with firefighting knowledge,he had none, but was a COMMUNITY ACTIVIST! Yet they won’t even consider giving a promotion to a dyslexic who studied hard and ACHIEVED a superior test score. Read Alito’s text and then try and squre it with Ginsburg’s assertion that the procees was open and fair. Disgusting.

They just decided that they wouldn’t use the results of that particular test.

This statement does not falsify my statement that they denied a promotion to a qualified individual. That was the end result of not using the test results. But, nice try.

It doesn’t matter how you feel about vdare’s veracity, they are just relaying the concurring opinion of Justice Alito. Typical trick of liars to attack the source rather than the argument.

As an aside, maybe the race hustlers could have spent some time and energy teaching the blacks so they could test well instead of bitching about the results after the fact. Kinda like the democrats in 2000 presidential election who should have taught their own how to vote correctly instead of who to vote for. anyone who left a polling booth unsure of who they voted for , and thinks that entitles them to throw a huge monkeywrench into the whole operation is an arrogant idiot.

59. doubled wrote:
My two cents on Alito’s text : notice how New haven gave the position of Chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners , not someone with firefighting knowledge,he had none, but was a COMMUNITY ACTIVIST! Yet they won’t even consider giving a promotion to a dyslexic who studied hard and ACHIEVED a superior test score. Read Alito’s text and then try and squre it with Ginsburg’s assertion that the procees was open and fair. Disgusting.

Peter writes: I wish I could see and hear the video you suggested, but unfortunately my computer has problems and doesn’t play sound right now.

My question to the city of New Haven and the Court of Appeals who say the test was biased against minorities is this; How can a test on knowledge of firefighting techniques and supervision, one that was passed with an exceptional score by a firefighter suffering from a learning disability by hard work and preparation, possibly be biased in anyway? What kind of question can be answered correctly by a knowledgable white firefighter that can’t be answered correctly by a similarly knowledgeable black firefighter? They were given the exact same exam, were they not? Aren’t they all supposed to be doing the same job and therefore have the sasme basic knowledge of their jobs? Or does the city of New Haven demand white firefighters only perform certain work which better prepares them for promotion exams and black firefighters are only allowed different work that doesn’t apply on the exam, which would be discrimination of the highest degree?

You seem to be really into legal analysis. Me too. However, as an employed lawyer, I don’t really have the time to troll blogs in order to leave copious and extensive derogatory comments. It comes from having a job. A time consuming one at that. Which I’m guessing you don’t? One of those lawyer types who couldn’t survive the economic downturn, meaning you probably weren’t very good? Or a law student who seems a bit big for his britches? Or, more likely, a poser legal eagle? Either way, David Steinberg works two jobs: full time editor at PJM, and part time fitness instructor. He also appears to write brilliantly, so he appears to be about three up on you. Since you have all this free time on your hands, why don’t you volunteer? Or by asking that question, have I just proven the point of the article?